Saturday, December 03, 2005

Good things and bad

Good things:
I'm sitting near my fireplace, which now has a gas log set installed so I can just walk over and light it using my lighter thingie and the key coming out of the wall. No more of those overpriced firelogs from the store! No more ashes to clean up! No more "oh, I thought this would be burned out by now, but it's not and I have to leave the house and if I leave with the fire lit, it might somhow burn down the house even though it's never demonstrated the ability to do anything like that before but you just never know, do you?" No more, "I'm freezing and I'd really like a good fire to sit next to just about now but I'm only going to be here for x-amount of time and it's not worth wasting a firelog." I just turn it off when I'm leaving or going upstairs or something. It rules.

It's Saturday. I slept in past 8 and I don't have a headache even though I drank too many margaritas last night at Steve and Sue's house. The day is not packed with activities or anything like that. I should finish putting up the indoor Christmas decorations and pay the bills but nothing is pressing at the moment.

A lot of my Christmas shopping is already done. I'm not feeling that crushing feeling of "Oh my God, what am I gonna get for everyone?" The lights are up outside and the stuff inside... yeah, I'll get to it.

Mermaid's book report got done. I probably helped her with it a little more than I was supposed to, but geez -- it was a science fiction novel. And we had to read the whole thing. And it's hard enough to get her to understand a story in her reader or a chapter book aimed at younger kids than this one was about about something she's actually interested in. I'm pleased with how painless it was, and how well it turned out. And I'm glad it's done.

I found a shirt for Buster at Target yesterday that actually fits him. I should tell you at this point that this is exciting not because I have some compulsion to make him look silly by dressing him in stupid-looking clothes, but because a) he has no body fat, and thus walks around shivering all winter, even in the house, and forget about taking him out for a walk or something; and b) he's hard to fit, because of the whole long body/short legs things. Just on a whim, I recently researched dachshund clothing online and found the most perfect little fleece jacket -- for $50. I won't spend that much for a jacket for one of my kids, so forget spending that much on a jacket for the dog. But this little tee shirt fits him just right, and it cost five bucks, so everybody wins. I think he actually kind of likes it too.

Bad things:

I ate the last of the leftover Thanksgiving stuffing this morning, so all we have left is turkey, which probably won't be good much longer. I love Thanksgiving leftovers, and I know all good things must come to an end, but that always bums me out.

Having the gas line put in to hook up the gas log set in the fireplace set us back more than you might think. I'm not going to say exactly how much it was because I don't want my dad to get concerned when he reads this, but let's just say it was kind of a pricey deal and leave it there. It's not like those firelogs you buy at the grocery store are so cheap either.

Yesterday morning, I woke up to the sound of Reasonable Man slamming around the bedroom getting dressed. I finally sat up and asked him if he was in a hurry or something, to which he replied that there was no hot water and he just wanted to get to the office so he could take a shower (I guess I knew they had a shower at his office. I've never actually seen it before though.). So I had to have Larry the Earnest Plumber come to my house for the third day in a row to relight the pilot light in our hot water heater, which he'd forgotten to do the day before when he was finished putting in the new, expensive gas line for the fireplace. It screwed up my morning.

I've barely touched my novel since I passed 50K on Monday night. I sat down and wrote maybe 250 words on it the other day, but I didn't even make it out of the scene I'd been writing on when I passed the 50K mark. I need to get my act together on that because I do not need another source of guilt in my life.

I feel like going back to bed. I also kind of feel like the two boxes of Christmas decorations in the living room are mocking me and demanding to know why I haven't unpacked them over the past two days since they've been sitting there. I don't know how productive today's going to be...

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